3 more mortgage servicers join foreclosure deal

Three more mortgage servicers have signed onto an agreement announced last month by federal regulators that ended a lengthy and largely ineffective review of foreclosure abuses.

The Federal Reserve Board and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said Thursday that the 13 participating mortgage servicers must provide a total of $9.3 billion of assistance to borrowers, including $3.6 billion in cash and $5.7 billion in loan modifications and forgiveness of deficiency judgments. When the agreement was announced in early January, 10 servicers were included.

The agreement targets 4.2 million borrowers whose homes were in some stage of the foreclosure process in 2009 or 2010. The servicers that are part of the agreement are Aurora, Bank of America, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, MetLife Bank, Morgan Stanley, PNC, Sovereign, SunTrust, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.

The enforcement action replaced an independent review of foreclosure proceedings announced in April 2011. Free reviews of foreclosures were offered to 4.4 million consumers, but far fewer than a million requested the reviews, and regulators opted to end them and offer direct assistance.

For three other banks that did not participate in the agreement -- GMAC Mortgage, Everbank and OneWest -- the independent foreclosure review process of about 457,000 mortgages is continuing.

Eligible borrowers, who could receive hundreds of dollars to as much as $125,000, will be contacted by Rust Consulting Inc., by the end of March, regulators said. Homeowners seeking more information or who want to provide Rust with updated contact information can call them at 888-952-9105.